Mid-Autumn Festival!

Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival which marks not only the end of the autumn harvest, but is also supposed to occur during full moon. However, contrary to popular belief, the Festival doesn’t always fall on that exact day (or moon). The date of the festival is always the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. Although there isn’t always a full moon, there will be one within two days of the festival.

Anyway, like any other festival, there is always food involved. In this case, mooncakes.

"Moon Cakes" by misbehave - Moon CakesUploaded by Atlaslin. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moon_Cakes.jpg#/media/File:Moon_Cakes.jpg

A traditional mooncake is a small covered tart filled with lotus bean paste. Occasionally, you might find salted egg yolks as a filling together with the lotus bean paste. The dough is made from a mixture of flour, alkaline water, sugar, oil, and it is wrapped around a ball of lotus bean paste before being pressed into a traditional engraved wooden mould to give it a round shape with a beautiful design. The top is then glazed before baking.

By Zane80 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
These days there are also snowskin or unbaked mooncakes, where the dough is made from glutinous rice instead of flour. The skin can be flavoured giving patissieres room to express their creativity. The mooncake also has to be stored in the refrigerator, hence the name snowskin. 

These days, there are many variations of mooncake flavours and fillings. In Singapore, if I remember well, there is even a unofficial competition on which restaurant, cafe or hotel has produced the best mooncake of the year. Even Starbucks have created their own. Every year there is a new flavour. From durian to champagne truffle, the flavours have expanded tremendously and not always in the right direction.  For a complete list, take a look at Hungrygowhere's guide to Singapore Mooncake 2015.

Luckily for me, I like the traditional one which can be found in my local Asian supermarket in London. So I will be enjoying some mooncakes while admiring a not too full moon with some friends.

An easy artichoke and spinach dip for your party

A couple of months ago, we visited our friends in Madrid. One night, our friend made us a quick snack of artichoke dip. It was amazing and it seemed really easy. So I decided to experiment. I found a couple of recipes online, but most of them have lots of cheese, require baking, or have tonnes of calories. I managed to make one equally yummy but healthier. So this is my version of artichoke and spinach dip. This recipe yields enough dip for 20 people.

Ingredients
1/2red onion
1garlic clove
1  400g can of artichoke hearts (when drained it should give you about 240g)
60gbaby spinach leaves
40g grated matured hard cheese such as Chedder, Parmesan or Gouda
70g mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

 Method:

If you have a big food processor, just add all the ingredients except the mayonnaise and process it until it is finely chopped. If you do not have one like me, start with the onion and garlic, followed by the artichoke hearts, followed by the spinach and grated cheese.

Transfer to a bowl and add the mayonnaise. Mix well to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Must watch food documentaries

I am in love with documentaries, especially those about food (surprise). I don't know if it has anything to do with age, but I am getting tired of the usual Hollywood trash. A documentary, however, is something that gives you just enough to inspire you to go off and read more about it.

So here are my top picks in random order:

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (film)


Along the same lines as Food Inc but less grotesque, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead highlights the adventure of one Aussie who went on an all juice diet and went to the USA to convince others to do so. It was quite inspiring and got me to drink juice for a short period of time.
Available on Netflix and via their website.

Back in Time For Dinner (series)


 This is a six part BBC series featuring a British family who travelled back in time from post-war to current day, living the lifestyle of a typical family of the time. Every episode shows a new decade where their home, clothes and the food they cooked are transformed to match as close as possible those times. It made me realise that appliances such as refrigerators and freezers were not so long ago a luxury.

Unfortunately, it is not longer available on BBC iPlayer. However I believe you can find it on YouTube.

Chef's Table (series)


 Surprisingly, Netflix's house production is pretty good. This is an example. Chef's Table is also a six part series where each episode profiles a world-renowned chef. The episodes tells their stories and their manifesto. The cinematography alone leaves you mouth watering.

The Search for General Tso (film)


 This one is hilarious. There were many moments in the documentary they went a little off piste with the storyline but it did succeed in tracking the history of the dish General Tso that you so often find on American Chinese menus. The official website also gives you the recipe.

I love the title as it reminds me of those dishes so famous in other countries and yet doesn't exists in their own roots e.g. Singapore fried noodles or Chinese tomato soup

The film is available on Netflix.

Expo Milano 2015

This weekend, C and I went to Milan for the Expo 2015. If you don't know what it is, you are not the only one. If it wasn't for  C's Milan colleagues who told us about it 6 months ago, we would be equally ignorant about it.

The Expo is a 6 months long grand fair with more than 140 participating countries According to the official website, each country has been asked to examine their role and relationship with preserving a healthy, safe and sufficient food source for everyone, while respecting the Planet and its equilibrium. We went not knowing what to expect but hoping to get inspired on what we can do as individuals.

The exhibition was massive. The area spans about what feels like 100 acres and each booth or pavilion is about the size of a football field. So walking from one end to other without stopping takes about 45 mins.  The booth structures were reflective of the cultures of the countries. A giant woven basket for Qatar, a mosque like house for Turkmenistan. You get the picture.

Turkmenistan's pavilion
Turkey's pavilion


There were long queues at every pavilion to enter and visit. I guess I should have read that part on the website about "welcoming over 20 million visitors." There was even an announcement for Japan's exhibit that the queue would take 5 hours. At the end of the day, I only managed to visit Turkmenistan, Istanbul, Romania (we had to), Moldova, Italy and the countries within the fruits and legume cluster and coffee cluster. Although, once you manage to enter a pavilion, you will view a show case the country's culture. For instance, there was a giant carpet in Turkmenistan (they are famous for woven carpets).

Coffee tasting at the Ethiopian pavilion

Degustation at the Citterio Academia

At the end of the day, as we joined the queue to get home, I wondered how close the countries kept to the theme. Apart from Slow Food, I didn't get a sense from the organisers or from the pavilions that the theme of sustainability was considered at all. To highlight this, I could find only two obvious water points to fill up my bottle and there was a queue at both. The amount of plastic I alone produced because I had to purchase bottles of mineral water is uncalled for.

On the upside, I got to know the cultures of some countries I have never even heard of. The fruit and legume cluster for instance gave a chance to countries such as Benin to make a appearance. Also, without taking an entire year off to explore Italy, this is probably the only time to experience the best of Italian food in a one place, if you can stomach all of the food. Eataly, one of the largest pavilions, brought several a pop up restaurants from every region of Italy, exploring the biodiversity of tradition and culture through food.

Was there an exchange of ideas between countries on how to create enough food to feed our future? Or is this just a lavish way to boost tourism? I am left wondering.

The Expo ends on 31 Oct. So if you are in the area, do find a day to go, maybe not on a weekend.

A tourist's guide to ordering drinks at a Singapore coffee shop

It has been a while since my last post and I have no excuse. My only defence is my new found inspiration from my trip home to Singapore.

While I love my cappuccino, I do enjoy the local coffee shop coffee at a quarter of the price. Firstly, there are a few things one needs to understand. There are no cows in the country and therefore milk is imported and fresh milk is not really fresh. So the replacement is either evaporated milk or condensed milk. Also, by default drinks come with sugar.

So to make an order, you have to do math. You take the most basic word Kopi and add words to it to say what you want:
Kopi:         condensed milk + sugar
+ Kosong: no sugar
+Si:           evaporated milk instead of condensed milk 

If you get lost, here's an info graph:

If you navigate from left to right, top to bottom, the sweetness of the drink increases. If you replace Kopi with Teh, you can the an assortment of tea drinks.


It took me a while to create this but it has been quite satisfying. Enjoy.

Authenticity or modernity?

I finally watched the movie The Hundred Foot Journey. I didn't think it was that good. I thought the father of the main character was hilarious though. Towards the end of the movie, the plot or rather lack of one was very predictable where the famous chef returns home to his lover and family with the goal get the two star Michellin restaurant to three stars. Some people can't stay contented with what they've got...

Oops did I spoil the movie for those who haven't watched it? Sorry.

Anyway the point I wanted to bring about is that for people like the chef, or me or those who no longer live at home, I think food plays a bigger role than just sustenance or pleasure. When you taste something that reminds you of home, the emotions can overwhelm you. It is no longer about how well the plate is presented or how balance the tastes is.

Yet in today's competitive world, restaurants are fighting for the best in innovation. Is there still room for our childhood favorites in this race? On another hand, being stubborn doesn't encourage progress. I love the conversation between Madam Mallory (Helen Mirren) & Hassam (Manish Dayal) in the movie that goes:

Helen Mirren: Why change a recipe that is works for 200 years?
Hassam: Maybe because sometimes 200 years is long enough?

So where does the balance lies?
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